


Mirrors

by shootingstarcipher



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Angst, M/M, Masturbation, NSFW, Possible Romance, Smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-02
Updated: 2016-12-09
Packaged: 2018-09-03 19:38:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8727631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shootingstarcipher/pseuds/shootingstarcipher
Summary: Every day his reflection grows more deranged and every night he relives the same horrific vision the perpetrator was forced to endure before his eventual escape. But for Dipper Pines, there is no escape.You can’t run from your own reflection. You can’t run from yourself.





	1. Goodnight

He had needed this desperately - this ability to get off to sleep and the willingness to allow himself the rest his body so urgently needed. He hadn’t slept in days and his exhaustion was causing his mind to become confused, making him see things that weren’t really there and making it hard for him to focus on anything at all. Mabel blamed it on his obsession with solving mysteries she considered too difficult for him to come anywhere close to solving. He, on the other hand, blamed it all on Bill Cipher.

In fact, he was almost certain that anything remotely unfavourable happening to him was the work of Bill Cipher - whether directly or as an indirect hit caused by one of his schemes - and in this particular case he was completely sure that Bill was the reason he hadn’t been sleeping. He wouldn’t have realised the demon was connected to the current mystery he was struggling to solve if it hadn’t been for Bill’s desperation to make a deal with him. And if he hadn’t been stupid enough to fall right into the demon’s trap, he would have certainly gotten at least a few hours of sleep before now.

But as a result of his desperation and Bill’s ability to manipulate him, he had endured another sleepless night, this time not in his own body but somewhere else - trapped in the mindscape, having been reduced to an existence where his soul had no vessel to possess. He had watched his body wander around without him for hours. He had watched himself physical abuse his own body repeatedly until everything look twisted and out of place, until he could hardly recognise himself. And he hadn’t been able to do anything to stop it.

Now he was back in his own body and Bill was gone - for now. Everything hurt - his limbs aching, his skin bruised and his flesh cut and bloody - and all he wanted to do was sleep. That’s why he was glad when he finally drifted off, even though he was only half in his bed, his blanket had fallen onto the floor and he was in so much pain it was impossible to get into a comfortable position.

In spite of his serious need for sleep, it was only a few hours after he slipped out of consciousness that he was woken up by the slamming of a door somewhere downstairs. Mabel was snoring gently in the bed next to him, an oddly comforting sound which managed to soothe him somewhat after his burst of panic at the sound of the door slamming, but even minutes later was still too afraid to fall asleep again. Then he thought he heard footsteps on the stairs when a wooden step creaked, but reason told him it was simply the kind of noise an old building like the Mystery Shack was bound to make every once in a while.

So for the next ten minutes or so, he lay there still, too scared to even reach over and retrieve the blanket from the floor beside his bed. And then something happened. A voice, inside his head, that sounded an awful lot like Bill’s. It spoke to him, saying only two words: “the mirror.” It sounded like a command; it was a command. He had no choice but to obey.

His bare feet padded lightly against the wooden floorboards as he walked across the attic floor, heading in the direction of the stairs leading to the first floor of the Mystery Shack. He could only remember ever seeing one mirror in his uncle’s home and that was in the bathroom, so that’s where he headed. Quietly and still quivering slightly with fear, he crept down the stairs and down the hall until he came to the bathroom door. It was closed but vacant. A chill ran down his spine as he placed his hand on the doorknob but he forced himself to ignore any doubts he had that he was doing the right thing. 

Even if Bill was hiding somewhere, ready to pounce the moment he opened the bathroom door, wasn’t it better to subject himself to the demon’s malice than risk letting Stan or Mabel or anyone else get hurt? He wasn’t doing this for himself, nor was he doing it out of weakness. He was doing it to protect those closest to him.

“Keep telling yourself that, Pine Tree.” His reflection grinned at him when he traipsed into the bathroom, its yellowed eyes glowing with malevolence. The door swung shut with a small whine, trapping Dipper in with his wildly grinning reflection. He stood facing the bathroom mirror with fear in his eyes - though he saw nothing but wickedness in the eyes of his reflection. “You could have gotten here a bit faster, you know,” the boy peering back at him groaned in annoyance. “I’ve been waiting for ages.”

Stifling a yawn, Dipper blinked and gazed up at the mirror with tired eyes. “Just let me sleep. That’s all I’m asking.” He didn’t know why he expected it to work and in hindsight, he should have known that it wouldn’t. Bill Cipher didn’t give in to pleading and begging or even reasoning. He had no empathy, no sympathy, or even any ability to feel for another sentient being, much less one that he considered worthless. So it shouldn’t have come to him as a surprise when his reflection simply laughed in his face at his request.

“You’re resorting to pathetic tactics like that now?” Bill exclaimed, giggling in amusement. “How could you really think that I’d give in to that? I expected better of you, Pine Tree!”

Dipper did nothing but blink sleepily and turn his head towards the door, half-hoping he was in the middle of a nightmare Bill had nothing to do with. He could have run. His instincts were telling him to leave, go back to the attic and hope and pray he would fall asleep and live to see the light of the next morning’s sunrise. But he didn’t. He stood there in the bathroom, raking his fingernails along the rim of the sink in front of him as he stared up at his twisted reflection in horror.

It was hard to tell which parts of his reflection were real and which were part of Bill Cipher’s latest scheme. His reflection’s hair was matted with thick dollops of blood and the same metallic tasting liquid was smeared across several other areas of his body: his throat, for example, and his hands as well as soaking the front of his shirt. His skin was black and blue but that, Dipper was certain, was what he actually looked like - bruised and broken and it was all because of Bill. He glanced down and checked for the blood his reflection promised him. He found none.

His reflection smirked at him in response. “I thought you’d be harder to fool, Pine Tree. I’m disappointed in you. Still, you’ve got an eternity to make it up to me. Let’s blame it on sleep deprivation, shall we?” Bill tilted his head and smiled a cold, cruel, painfully sarcastic smile as he taunted him. “I just hope you do better in the morning, after you’ve had a good night’s sleep. You’ll be back to your old self then, I expect.”

Anger and frustration building up inside him, Dipper gritted his teeth as he glowered back at the mirror. He was already sick and tired of the demon’s roundabout way of telling him why he was there and although he was sure he wouldn’t like the answer, he still felt compelled to ask. “What do you want, Bill? You can’t get to the journal from inside there, so you’re just going to torture me until I give up and destroy it myself? Is that it?” But Bill didn’t say anything at all. He just stood there looking menacing, keeping silent as if he was deep in thought. The grin on his beaten up face suggested he was enjoying Dipper’s frustration though.

“Good idea,” he said eventually. “But no, that’s not my plan at all.” He stopped and paused, shifting his position to rest his chin on his bruised and bloody hand. “You’ll find out what my plan is pretty soon - if you’re back to normal by the morning, that is.”

“Alright,” Dipper yawned, losing interest in the demon’s constant mind games. All he really wanted was to go back to sleep and forget about the pain he was in, at least for now. In the morning, he’d try and figure out what to do about it all but for now, he just needed to ignore it and get some sleep. “I’m gonna go now then, seeing as you don’t really seem to need me around…” He trailed off, turning away from the mirror and heading towards the door only half-conscious of what he was doing.

Except that Bill Cipher stopped him in his tracks before he reached the door.

“Whoa. Not so fast, Pine Tree. We’ve got the whole night to have a little chat together, haven’t we? Unless… Well, I suppose you could leave,” he started, his voice mocking. Dipper turned and stared back at him, his eyes glazing over with exhaustion and anger. But I didn’t think you’d want anything bad to happen to Shooting Star… Or Red,” the demon taunted, his voice full of pride as he realised he’d pushed all the buttons he’d needed to in order to convince the human to stay.

His words resonated through Dipper’s brain. As long as he could help it, nothing was going to happen to Mabel - or Wendy, for that matter. Even worse than letting something bad happen to them was letting Bill cause something to happen to them, so as horrible as it may have been for him, he reluctantly agreed to stay at least for a little while longer and sat down on the bathroom floor, leaning against the bath for support as he gazed up at the mirror, waiting for his reflection to horrify him further.

Bill did not disappoint. His fingernails grew and grew until they became talons and his teeth did the same, yellowing and sharpening until they had grown into lethal-looking fangs. His hands, face and torso became even more bloodied than before, cuts and gashes all over his body oozing the thick red substance until Dipper’s insides flipped and he felt like he would have thrown up if he hadn’t looked away. He fixed his gaze to the floor, drawing patterns in the tiles with his eyes. Then, when his reflection kept surprisingly quiet, he closed his eyes, hoping to fall asleep.

But the bathroom floor was too hard and cold, too uncomfortable for him to sleep on no matter how exhausted he felt. And then of course, Bill decided to start speaking to him again.

“You’re not very good at entertaining me, are you, Pine Tree? I was expecting you to do something interesting… get angry at me, try and break the mirror and end up making a fool of yourself - that sort of thing.” At the sound of his voice, Dipper tilted his head back and looked up at his reflection from the cold hard floor of the bathroom and groaned, half in tiredness and half in annoyance. The expression on his reflection’s face was epitome of dissatisfaction - not that Dipper cared, that is. Why should it have mattered whether Bill Cipher of all people (though Dipper didn’t exactly consider the demon a “person”) was unhappy with something he had or hadn’t done? It wasn’t his fault that in his tired, sleep deprived condition he hadn’t live up to Bill’s expectations.

He still didn’t snap. No matter how much Bill wore him down, he was confident that he would probably never resort to letting his anger and frustration get the better of him and giving Bill what he wanted. He was determined not to let that happen and in any case, he simply didn’t have the energy to express his anger much less break a mirror in a sudden fit of rage.

“Just leave me alone for one night,” he murmured - so quietly he wasn’t sure the demon could even hear him. Whether he heard him or not, however, he would always be listening in on the boy’s thoughts as long as it was possible for him to do so. “And leave my family alone too,” Dipper added hastily, louder this time. “And my friends. Just leave us all alone… even if it’s only for a few hours.” Begging again. He should have known better and regretted it as soon as he finished speaking.

What Bill did next was the last thing Dipper had been expecting.

With a small smile on his face and a twinkle in his golden eyes, he gestured towards the door and waved at Dipper in dismissal. “Fine. Go on. I’m sure I can entertain myself for a little while… But you will be back here in the morning, won’t you?” He tilted his head onto one side and widened his eyes, feigning innocence - not that Dipper was falling for it. He did, however, accept Bill’s offer of letting him leave.

If he’d had more energy he would have sprung to his feet but instead he did the next best thing and scrambled up from the floor, glancing at his reflection one last time before walking out the door.

His heart was slamming inside his chest, beating so hard with fear that he thought it might explode. His breathing hitched in the back of his throat and beads of sweat began to cling to his bruised palms and the back of his neck. He didn’t understand what was happening and as he staggered towards the door, almost banging into it as his hands grappled for the doorknob. He paused for a moment, holding onto the doorknob with both hands, to catch his breath and steady himself. 

As he did so, he happened to turn his head and glance over his shoulder, catching a glimpse of his reflection in the mirror. He was grinning, practically from ear to ear. “Goodnight, kid,” his reflection told him, keeping his grin fixed in place.

Dipper didn’t know why he did, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself from replying automatically. “Goodnight,” he said as he turned back to the door and stepped through it.


	2. Heart

Leaving the bathroom brought him the sweet taste of freedom and relief - for a moment. He’d been careless to assume that just because he had taken the form of his reflection, the demon was confined to the bathroom mirror as he seemed to be. Dipper hadn’t realised just how many reflective surfaces stood between him from the bathroom on the first floor to the attic room where he slept until now, until he saw his reflection change in each of them, each step he took reducing his reflection to an even more unnerving image than the last.

His face was melting, or so it seemed, and blood oozed out from behind his eyes, dripping down his cheeks and staining his clothes. Desperate to force the image out of his mind, Dipper shut his eyes and grabbed onto the banister with both hands, feeling his way up the stairs but he could still see it in his mind’s eye. The sound of Bill’s shrill laughter didn’t help him forget it either.

But he made it - eventually - to the attic room and dove into his bed, burying his face in the pillow and covering his entire body with the blanket. The laughter still rang out inside his mind but he gritted his teeth and growled, trying hard to drown it out. Somehow, Mabel was still sleeping through all of this and the moment the laughter stopped, Dipper drifted off to sleep again as well, but what awaited him in his dreams was even more horrifying than what he knew he would be waking up to.

Everything was dark and he couldn’t help but feel lost in it all, as if the darkness was swallowing him up. He blinked a few times as a glimmer of light threatened to reveal his location. Then, squeezing his eyes shut, he placed his hands on the smooth (yet oddly slanted) stone wall beside him and ran his fingers along it as he took a few steps forwards, eyes opening wide in shock when he heard the familiar sound of Bill Cipher’s deranged laughter. Except, as he immediately found out, it wasn’t Bill at all.

Well, Bill was there, but he was smaller and sitting on the vibrant, psychedelic floor surrounded by stronger-looking demons he was reduced to a weakened, saddened, pathetic version of himself - not at all like the megalomaniac lunatic Dipper knew him to be. It was unnerving, seeing him like this. His bow tie and top hat were drooping, his arms were folded in front of him and his legs were crossed. His gaze seemed to be fixated on the floor but there was a vacant look in his eye that suggested he wanted to be anywhere but right where he was.

Behind him were two other demons who looked similar to him, though one of them was a lime green colour as opposed to the luminous yellow of Bill and the other one, whose name Dipper did not know. They hovered above the floor, staring down at Bill with angry scarlet eyes. But it was the blue demon in front of him that was laughing. With crimson flecks in his single narrow eye and a golden flame roaring in the palm of his hand, he shouted something furiously in a language Dipper didn’t understand - but he understood the look of hurt encompassing Bill’s eye as he closed it, making no attempt to defend himself or even flee from the situation he clearly didn’t want to be in.

None of them had seemed to notice Dipper’s presence and in a sudden fit of unexpected bravery, he stepped out of the shadows, intending to let his presence be known. After all, it was nothing but a dream. They couldn’t really hurt him, could they? Maybe. Maybe dream demons could.

But even as he took a step forward, leaving the darkness behind him with baited breath, not one of the four triangular dream demons looked towards him - even though his bare feet padded against the floor not entirely silently and even though he cleared his throat to test whether they could hear him; apparently, they couldn’t. Not even Bill turned to look in his direction and the rest of them simply continued screaming in their own unfathomable language, aiming all of their obvious insults straight at Bill, who turned away from them to avoid their gazes but still refused to defend himself.

It only got worse from there.

He watched, standing there with his back against the slanted wall, as the demon haunting both his dreams and his waking life was grabbed from behind, his limbs flailing as he was lifted into the air and stabbed in the back with something sharp and silver. Blue blood spilled out but to Dipper’s surprise there was no screaming - everything had been reduced to silence. He couldn’t bear to watch. Even though he hated Bill with every fibre of his being, he wouldn’t have wished something like this to happen to anyone - not even Bill Cipher.

And then the weak, defenceless Bill before him did something even more shocking than not reacting to the pain of having a blade shoved into his back. Suddenly whipping round, he grabbed hold of the blade - slicing his hands in the process - and pushed it away from him, thrusting it towards one of the demons instead. Within seconds, two of them were just moments away from what Dipper assumed to be death - or the equivalent of death for dream demons - and had been lowered closer to the floor, their green and yellow bodies oozing a blood-like liquid as they melted away from existence.

But the third of Bill’s opponents - the blue one, the one that had attacked him first - remained alive. In spite of that particular demon initiating the bloodbath that Bill had continued, Bill seemed to be somewhat merciful towards them - more merciful than Dipper had ever thought he could be. But of course, Dipper woke up before he witnessed the end and so the blue dream demon’s fate remained a mystery.

Still, what did that matter? It was just a dream, wasn’t it? Well, no, it was actually more of a nightmare.

He avoided the bathroom like the plague that morning, at least for as long as possible, focusing all of his attention on Mabel simply to avoid having to look at anything reflective out of fear for seeing Bill’s haunting yellow eyes staring back at him with that twisted smile of his. He even ate his cereal (dry, without milk) with his hands so that he didn’t have to go near a spoon. But eventually he had no choice but to face up to his fears. His hair was getting greasy and even Mabel was pointing out that he hadn’t had a shower for a couple of days already. She did make him hopeful that Bill had gotten bored of waiting and left, however, as she had been in the bathroom and hadn’t noticed anything unusual that morning. So he went in with high hopes, aiming to be in and out within twenty minutes at the most.

His plan was thrown out the window the second he started to undress. He was facing away from the mirror, his gaze fixed on the showerhead - which, while reflective, did not display any unnerving image of him and he was grateful for that - and shrugging off his jacket when that cackling sound he was really started to detest rang out from behind him, making him jump. His jacket dropped to the floor, his grip on it loosening suddenly, and he spun around, narrowing his eyes at his hateful reflection with fury and horror in his eyes.

He was still here. He hadn’t left. Maybe he’d left while Mabel was there and come back or maybe she just couldn’t see him. Whatever the reason, he was back now, staring out from behind the mirror with malice in his glowing yellow eyes and a sinister grin carved into his face - Dipper’s face.

Turning away again, Dipper did his best to ignore the twisted look on his reflection’s face and carry on undressing but shame, embarrassment and curiosity got the better of him and he gave in to his compulsion and faced the mirror, scowling as he asked what he was doing there. His body ached and exhaustion and paranoia were taunting him from the back of his mind and he was in no mood to be playing mind games with any demons, particularly not Bill Cipher. But he had to play along. For the good of his family, he had to play along.

His reflection cocked his head onto one side and his grin promptly disappeared, replacing itself with a disturbingly wide smile that oozed sarcasm. “Don’t mind me, Pine Tree. Just go about your business as usual. You won’t even notice I’m here.”

If Dipper hadn’t known any better, he would have screamed at him that he already knew he was there and nothing either of them could do would change that, but reason told him that would only make things worse. And besides, he was determined not to let the demon have the upper hand - even though he was almost one hundred percent certain that he already did. So without even glancing at the mirror, he pulled his shirt up over his head and dropped it onto the floor beside his jacket. After he had taken off his shorts his hands moved to the waistband of his underwear and he stopped, painfully aware of Bill’s watchful gaze.

Even though it probably didn’t mean anything to him… Even though he’d probably seen it a million times before… In spite of all that, Dipper was still too embarrassed so he climbed into the bath still wearing his underwear and switched the water on as he grabbed the shower head, pulling the shower curtain across with his free hand. Then, once he was sure Bill couldn’t see him, he undressed fully and started to wash himself. He thought he heard a snicker come from the behind the curtain but he put it down to paranoia and continued washing.

As he was washing his hair, however, he heard the same snicker again and peeled back the shower curtain only slightly, so that he could see the mirror from where he was but was still keeping the rest of his body hidden. “What?” he snapped, peering out from behind the curtain. “Why are you laughing?”

“No reason, kid,” his reflection simpered, tilting his head as he smiled back at him. When Dipper carried on staring at him angrily, refusing to turn away and continue showering, the demon sighed and spoke up again, feigning reluctance. “Fine, Pine Tree, I’ll tell you. I’m just amused by the fact that you actually think I can’t see you behind that curtain.” Still scowling, Dipper pulled the curtain across fully and turned to face the wall, continuing to wash his hair in spite of the gnawing paranoia working away in the back of his brain. 

Bill didn’t say a word until he had finished washing and was turning off the water, at which point he pointed out that he had left his towel on the radiator across the room from the bath and that’s when Dipper realised that if he was going to get it, he would have to walk out in front of Bill the way he was - and if he’d been so embarrassed as to actually wear his underwear in the shower before he took them off, he was far too embarrassed to walk across the room without wearing anything at all. “Come on out, kid. I’m bored of waiting,” the demon urged, growing impatient.

Even though his heartbeat was rapidly increasing in fear and his body was starting to tremble, Dipper gave in to the demon’s strongly expressed opinion and pushed back the shower curtain, facing away from the mirror as he stepped out of the bath. He had the towel wrapped around his waist in seconds and his reflection gave a dissatisfied whine at that. He scooped up his clothes from the floor in a hurry and was about to unlock the door when Bill clicked his tongue at him angrily and attracted his attention.

“You don’t have to leave,” the demon advised, gesturing to the space in front of the mirror. “You could stay… In fact, you should stay - unless you want something completely and utterly horrible to happen to your… let’s just call her your “girlfriend.” Well,” he added casually. “In your dreams! And trust me, I would know. I’ve seen it all.”

He knew he was talking about Wendy. And Bill was right; she wasn’t really his girlfriend and probably never would be - except in his dreams, as he had already pointed out. But whether she was his girlfriend or not, Dipper had no intention of letting anything “completely and utterly horrible” happen to her on his account, so he had no choice but to stay. He swore he felt his heart slow down its movements as he turned his back on the door - fingers still connecting with metal lock - and slid to the floor with his free hand holding the towel in place, and the world seemed to dull and fade as he gave in to the demon’s demand. He wasn’t being weak, he promised himself. He was protecting someone he loved.


End file.
